Untyped syntax is a defining chracteristic of shells.

This answer by Jörg W Mittag is very convincing:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/3640403/512904

This table in particular is very illuminating:

                  | Ruby             | Bash    
  -----------------------------------------
  number          | 123              | 123
  string          | '123'            | 123
  regexp          | /123/            | 123
  file            | File.open('123') | 123
  file descriptor | IO.open('123')   | 123
  URI             | URI.parse('123') | 123
  command         | `123`            | 123

Here's a similar table with add your example's syntatic elements:

                  | Lisp             | Bash    
  -----------------------------------------
  command         | `ls`             | ls
  function        | (myfunc)         | myfunc
  string          | "afile"          | afile
  redirection     | (out-to "afile") | >afile